Centrimaster truing (wheel building) stand.

[Sybarite]

Does the Centrimaster self center when turning the crank? I know there are centering gauges, etc but I am too lazy to calculate virtual centers - that's why I used my Park more than the fancy DT, and the gauges are used for fine tuning.

[StuTheWeak]

As delivered it's self-centering. With that said...over time I suppose it could come out of "perfect center" with wear on the parts. You can see where you can loosen bolts to fidget with settings...so you could easily "re-center" it if ever need be.

Seeing how the arms and mech is all steel...you'd have to put a lot of miles on that stand for it to loose any measure of center in my humble opinion. Think I have a better chance of getting struck by lightening before I could put enough wear on that stand to cause it to come out of center.

[ergott]

Self centering is no substitute for a centering gauge.



http://www.parktool.com/product/wheel-a ... auge-wag-4

-Eric

[StuTheWeak]

Upon closer examination of the stand's picture...re-centering it would not require special tools nor more than 5 minutes of your time...

1.) Loosen the two retaining nuts (allen?) of the center arm.
2.) Turn crank till hub-arms fit snug against center arm.
3.) Tighten the two rataining nuts (allen?) of the center arm.
4.) Drink yourself a beer and pat yourself on the back.

Anyone disagree?

[ergott]

At least with my stand, I could mount the wheel in there twice and get two different "centers". The axle only needs to be off a fraction of a millimeter when you clamp it down for the center to be off. In the video, it looks like you center to the rim, but this is useless in a new build as the rim won't be centered until you get it there by verifying with a gauge.

If I'm missing something in how this stand works I'd like to know. I'm also a bit curious at that full electric gauge/computer setup and what that costs. This stand looks like it would cut my building time down a little bit which at volume is a plus. I humbly think the stand is overkill for the hobbyist unless money is no object.

Let us know how it goes with your work.

-Eric

[StuTheWeak]

Eric,

I agree I need a dishing gauge just to be certain. I'd hope the stand works like magic ruling out a dishing gauge, but...

Stu

[ergott]

If I had built a few thousand wheels maybe I wouldn't feel that way. I look at this trueing stand as a crutch till I can learn to walk (build) on my own.

No way. Once you know what you are doing, a stand like that will increase productivity (good for a pro). I wouldn't be want to build on any stand that didn't at least have the features mine does. Working with roller tipped dial gauges makes life so much easier. Mine (as do many others) measures in 1/10s of a millimeter. I've even thought of putting another dial on the opposite side to measure rim width on the fly. This would help ID potential problems with brake pulse. Some rims have more problems than others. I could even mount a tire and air it up to see if there is a problem before the customer gets it.

The scraping noise of standard stands is annoying at best. I remember using one with ceramic rims and the sound was excruciating! Another problem is if you have a scraper on one side you only get the spots that are off to the same side as the scraper and you don't work the parts of the rim that are off to the opposite side of center. A gauge does that.


-Eric

[Sybarite]

I was talking about a centering gauge, not the dishing tool. Both have their uses.
http://www.parktool.com/product/centering-gauge-1554-1

And yes, roller tipped dial gauges are great!

[StuTheWeak]

I love the idea of having another center-dial-gauge on the opposite side. Never mind I'm left handed and the gauges mounted on the left side will get in my way. Wonder how I could rig it up to have gauges on both sides?

[ergott]

I was talking about a centering gauge, not the dishing tool. Both have their uses.
http://www.parktool.com/product/centering-gauge-1554-1

And yes, roller tipped dial gauges are great!

I have one and even that (again I'm talking about the TS-3) isn't consistent depending on how it seats in the stand. Even different skewer clamping forces throw off the center enough for me to disregard it.

-Eric

[StuTheWeak]

I have one and even that (again I'm talking about the TS-3) isn't consistent depending on how it seats in the stand. Even different skewer clamping forces throw off the center enough for me to disregard it.

-Eric

Eric,

You'd think if you had twin-center-gauges that it would indeed rectify any "out-of-center" issue. It would work as an effective in-stand dishing-gauge, no?

Stu

[ergott]

Measuring how true a wheel is and centering it to fractions of a millimeter at a radius of over 300mm away from where it is mounted is bound to have inconsistencies. You can try this with any stand. Take a wheel that is known to be 100% true and centered and mount it into the stand. Check it against whatever indicators are used on the stand. Now take it out and mount it again.

Every stand I've worked with will be off at least enough that I would confirm it with a dish tool (corrected myself this time) each time. It adds so little to my workflow. Once I've zeroed my dial indicators with the wheel in the stand and the dish tool confirming things, I finish truing. If I take the wheel out of the stand for any reason, I have to zero my indicators again.

-Eric

[rruff]

The bike center I owrk for employs the best wheel builder in the region, who made well over 10.000 wheels in his career, his masterpieces were ridden at the olympics, world championships. He has never used a ready-made truing stand: he trues the wheels in two modified MTB forks, one for the front, one for the rear. If you're interested, I can post a picture...

I still use the cheap (~$50?) Ultimate one-arm truing stand that I already had when I started this business a few years ago. I recently broke one of the plastic doohickeys though, and it's held together with wire... so maybe it is time for an upgrade.

I don't see a benefit to having a fancy machine, since it easy enough to eyeball the trueness of the rim with simple guides... even with my increasingly crappy eyesight. I do have magnetic dial gauges I use at the end sometimes. The tricky part is all the detailed work and stress relieving... and balancing the tension when the rim isn't round and straight. Being able to get the wheel off and on the stand easily and quickly is important. Of course, it's nice to have a beautiful piece of equipment as well.

I think if I was going to invest in a fancy wheel building machine, it would be something that facilitates stress-relieving... ie consistently with the ability to gauge the tension change.

[bikedoc]

completely over the top but very nice

[StuTheWeak]

In that video the guy is using a lever to stress relieve with the wheel in the stand. The lever costs 90 euro...throw in 19% VAT and shipping...easily $150. Though i'd still like to have it.